Mr. Sanjeev Kumar Jha is the General Manager – Corporate HR for Ramesh Corp. Within Ramesh Corp, Mr. Jha is responsible for managing human capital in trading companies, a manufacturing company, cloud computing, an IT Company, and a sports company. He has a considerable wealth of experience under his belt in the field of trading, manufacturing, hydro & construction.
1. How would you introduce yourself personally and professionally?
As a personal introduction, I would introduce myself as a person who is eager to learn new things every day. Although I am still learning, I have amassed some sets of proficiency under my knowledge. After considerable experience in the field of trading, manufacturing, hydro & construction, I am currently working as a General Manager – Corporate HR for Ramesh Corp since August 5, 2014.
2. We discovered that you are a Bangalore University MBA graduate. What do you think your MBA degree has done to help you grow as a professional?
Being an MBA Graduate with dual specialization in Human Resource Management and Marketing Management from Bangalore University, I have learned that the cultural aspects of the South Asian countries are remarkably similar to each other. My Indian education immensely complements the Nepalese work environment. The cultural values, religion, diversity, people's mentality are more or less similar in Nepalese and Indian Society.
Bangalore University qualification has highly formulated my skills in regards to the global perspective, with professional knowledge of both HR and Marketing being implemented on the global market. My education helped to enhance confidence in myself. With my MBA degree, the major skill sets I found that I have developed are evaluating HR functions & services, associate recruitment, and retention, performance management system, empowering and encouraging working personnel, formulating HR and employment policies & laws, diplomatic leadership, just to name a few. As I have mentioned managing multiple companies, the learning from my MBA years has helped me immensely.
3. Can you share with us your first job and how did you get it?
My job was as an HR Executive in Ghorahi Cement Industry Ltd owned by the Triveni Group. At that time, the cement company was regarded as one of the largest cement companies in Nepal. I had to undergo rigorous levels of selection to achieve my first job.
4. What is your vision for Ramesh Corp. as a General Manager - Human Resources?
I have been a part of Ramesh Corp for over 7 years. I have been blessed enough to gather a wealth of knowledge and experience in the fields I am involved in. Every day I strive to become a responsible leader, I believe in the vision of our organization like enabling growth, empowering people, and enriching lives. This mindset, I believe, assists me to communicate, implement, execute, and evaluate the performance of the entire organization and our human capital. The devil is in the details, as they say, but overall the challenge is to be able to upkeep the requirements of associates and needs of the organization in balance.
5. Can you tell us about your three core skills and how you've been able to improve them over time?
As per my thought process, great managers are usually specialists in their areas. However, to lead consistently, they must master additional skill sets. Over the years, I have evolved to correctly identify, recruit, nurture, and develop talents. This, I trust, is my most important core skill. A detailed organizational study of the group's overarching values and strategies is an important part of determining human resource strategy.
Every organization exists to achieve a goal in a larger context. The objective of a company, or the reason for its presence, would govern its strategy and tactics. To acquire such goals, I always keep myself ready to align the vision of the organization for HR strategy formulation. That would be my second core skill. And lastly, apart from this, one of the prominent tools I apply to be a responsible leader is fostering a partnership role to execute considerable outcomes.
6. What have been the most difficult hurdles you've experienced in your career? How did you get through it?
As individuals advance in their professions, it's inevitable for them to ascend the corporate ladder. While this advancement could be rewarding, it also has its own set of issues. Professionals can help their teams succeed, and the fulfillment of seeing their team improve and seeing them succeed is a professional accomplishment. Nevertheless, it is not all pretty seamless. There are difficult times as one is accountable for the development of his/her personnel and professional success. The obstacles of leading a team fluctuate with the global corporate climate, so even if we think we've found our groove, things might vary swiftly.
Likewise, during the COVID pandemic, it had been pretty tough for me to maintain a positive environment within the workforce. As the pandemic was extremely unexpected initially, I had a hard time maintaining the competencies of associates & stakeholders. It was quite tough getting them ready all the time. Eventually, I had a tough time moving human capital into a competitive trajectory.
To overcome those hurdles, I’ve figured out the best way to communicate effectively with associates, confronting their performance bottlenecks, making the right decisions while hiring new associates. On the other hand, I have implemented the practice of communicating the shared vision, inspiring personnel, maintaining the challenges, creating a sustainable working environment so that the workforce could operate more efficiently.
7. How do you think the work culture and environment have changed in Nepal over the last 10 years?
The work culture and environment in Nepal have significantly improvised over the last 10 years. Previously, we could observe that the management and top executives had all the power to implement anything in an organization. But now, it has completely transformed with the rise of technology and innovation. There is a well-informed workforce in the organizations. People are getting opportunities to work in diversified and advanced companies in Nepal. Also, companies are now cultivating the workforce environment with the increase of HR tools and techniques. However, there are many things to be improved. Like, people who have extensive ability tend to get hired abroad. Human capital should get opportunities to thrive in Nepal itself.
8. How would you describe Ramesh Corp.'s work culture? Could you describe some of the policies that set Ramesh Corps apart from other firms in terms of employee wellbeing?
While introducing Ramesh Corp., it was first initiated as a family business. Now, Ramesh Corp. runs numerous companies under its belt. Ramesh Corp. adopts the corporate culture by implementing the best possible practices. The main motto is engaging our personnel and stakeholders to enable continuous learning and collaborative connections built on integrity, respect, and shared progress in terms of our quality. While dealing with clients, partners, and the workforce; we follow open, truthful, clear, and ethical business values. Moreover, we are quick to seize new business opportunities and new avenues toward a brighter future. To foster a relationship of trust, we cultivate authentic cooperation and collaboration with our associates and partners. By incorporating trustworthiness into every one of our commercial activities, we aim to reach benchmark practices and generate productivity improvements.
9. What is your take on the Social Security Act introduced by the Government of Nepal?
The social security act enacted by the government of Nepal in 2074 had a distinct vision and approach. Until now in 2078, numerous amendments have been proposed and some of them have been implemented. But the amendment would be more productive if it was enacted as it had been written. It would be worthy if organizations and people accept SSF wholeheartedly and are able to deliver the best practices, which hopefully would genuinely serve the purpose of the wellbeing of our country at large. In addition, SSF should secure the investment of people and create a lucrative environment by offering superior value to people and their investments.
10. Finally, what are some HR Analytics according to you that every HR professional should keep an eye on, and why?
Some of the most common metrics measured by HR analytics encompasses Training efficiency, talent acquisition, offer acceptance rate, Training effectiveness index, employee happiness index, retention rate, recruitment metrics, and human resource engagement.
Human resource analytics, alternatively known as people analytics, employment analytics, or workforce analytics, requires collecting, evaluating, and interpreting HR statistics. This allows the company to assess the influence of a variety of Human resource KPIs on entire organizational operations and generate data-driven choices. Besides, HR analytics is a component-based technique to HR Functions. These fundamental ideas are something every HR professional must fully understand and implement in their work. The goal of HR analytics is to determine which facts could be collected and ways to integrate that data to model and anticipate competencies so that the company can achieve the best value upon investing in human resources.
In the contemporary era, the idea of HR analytics is to serve the purpose of identifying the key data capturing, to know how to utilize the captured data translated into information to model and predict the capabilities of human capital for a higher return on investment.